Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios told VGC that it is working on a game that it calls an Afro-Gothic RPG. It’s inspired by games like Planescape: Torment.
The company also said it is looking for a funding partner for the game. Studio head Abubakar Salim, an actor in House of the Dragon who is also the creative head behind Tales of Kenzera: Zau, has a pitch deck for the game. That title was a game about grief, as Salim was grieving for his own father, and he infused a similar backstory into the character Zau. I played a part of the game and GamesBeat’s Mike Minotti played a lot more and we both enjoyed it.
It’s an isometric role-playing game, set in the Tales of Kenzera universe. But Salim told VGC that it’s darker, more visceral and gritty. It’s a single-player game, and the art will be stylized, not photorealistic.
Surgent Studios has developed a prototype of Project Uso.
The original Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a Metroidvania game. It was released earlier this year as an EA Original title, and it received a Metacritic score of 76. Sadly, the company laid off a dozen developers and it now has put the team on hold (notice of redundancy) while it is seeking partners for the new game.